Frequently Asked Questions, Continued...

Q: What do you do for a living?

I like to think of myself as a "cranial prostitute" -- that is, I think for money. To be politically correct, I guess I could say that I am a Senior Staff Corporate Applications Engineer but I've also held titles such as Senior Software Engineer. I am in a field called EDA (Electronic Design Automation) and my specialty is in digital logic simulation. If you don't know what that means, essentially anyone who decides to design a new computer chip would use EDA software to implement and verify his design before committing millions of dollars to producing real silicon IC chips. It's a fairly specialized field with only a handful of large players.

At this juncture, I prefer to keep my current employer and the location of my employment private for legal reasons. I have assembled reunion pages for several of the companies I have worked for in the past. I hope that anyone who works for or has worked for any of those companies in the past will send me their address so I can add them to the list.

Why do you keep your resume online?

Because I can. And because it annoys those who choose to ignore the fact that everyone, ultimately, is available if the situation is right. This is especially true in any sort of high-tech field. Also, it saves me the time and trouble of printing and mailing my resume to headhunters or perspective employers. In fact, the last two times I changed jobs, I didn't need to do anything but e-mail the URL where my resume could be found. It serves as a screening device, too. If a personnel weenie tells me they need a hard-copy resume because their company doen't have internet access, I know that's not any place I would enjoy working. ;-)

Are you available for work?

Having had my resume online for nearly five years now, I get a lot of e-mail asking if I am available for an interview or if I could send a copy of my updated resume. About 80% of all the employment-related messages I receive are for jobs that don't match my experience in the least. More often than not, these read like they were generated by some kind of keyword-matching software program.

For the record, let me state the following:

1. I am currently employed and, out of a sense of personal obligation, I do not intend to change jobs until at least the end of the year 2000. Even then, as long as my current employer is willing to put up with me, I'll probably stay beyond that.
2. I summarily delete job descriptions and requests for information that either: (a) don't match my skills at all, (b) look machine-generated, or (c) don't include any information that would allow me to decide whether I'm interested in the position.
3. I don't update my resume very often but, when I do, the newest version can always be found online. I reserve the right to delete messages which ask only for an updated resume.

I know that all sounds kinda cold but between work and personal e-mail I get somewhere around 200 messages a day and I don't have time to answer machine-generated job trolls. For what it's worth, I do answer thoughfully prepared letters from prospective employers and headhunters which are addressed to me personally. And I archive the names and contact information of those who offer jobs in my field, on the off chance that I or one of my colleagues suddenly ends up on the job market.

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